Less access to guns sought for GIs at risk of suicide

New York Times

Updated 11:07 pm, Sunday, October 7, 2012

Photo: BOB OWEN

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Amelia Aguilar's eyes fill with tears as she sits with her husband Armando Aguilar in their Blessing home, holding items from the military service of their son, Armando "Mondo" Aguilar Jr. His death in 2010 was ruled a suicide.

Amelia Aguilar's eyes fill with tears as she sits with her husband Armando Aguilar in their Blessing home, holding items from the military service of their son, Armando "Mondo" Aguilar Jr. His death in 2010 was

With nearly half of all suicides in the military having been committed with privately owned firearms, the Pentagon and Congress are moving to establish policies intended to separate at-risk service members from their personal weapons.

The issue is thorny for the Pentagon, with gun-rights advocates and many service members opposing policies that could be construed as limiting the private ownership of firearms.

But with suicides continuing to rise this year, senior Defense Department officials are developing a suicide prevention campaign that will encourage friends and families of potentially suicidal service members to safely store or voluntarily remove personal firearms from their homes.

“This is not about authoritarian regulation,” said Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. “It is about the spouse understanding warning signs and, if there are firearms in the home, responsibly separating the individual at risk from the firearm.”

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Woodson, who wouldn't provide details, said the campaign would be introduced over the coming months. It would also include measures to encourage service members, their friends and relatives to remove possibly dangerous prescription drugs from the home of potentially suicidal troops, he said.

In another step considered significant by suicide prevention advocates, Congress appears poised to approve legislation that would allow military mental health counselors and commanders to talk to troops about their private firearms. The measure, which is promoted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, would amend a law enacted last year that prohibited the Defense Department from collecting information from service members about lawfully owned firearms kept at home.

That law, part of the Defense Authorization Act and passed at the urging of the National Rifle Association, was viewed by many military officials as preventing commanders and counselors from discussing gun safety with potentially suicidal troops. But the NRA said the provision was a response to efforts by Army commanders to maintain records of all the firearms owned by their soldiers.

The new amendment, part of the defense authorization bill for 2013 that has passed in the House of Representatives but not in the Senate, would allow mental health professionals and commanders to ask service members about their personal firearms if they have “reasonable grounds” to believe the person is at “high risk” of committing suicide or harming others.

“We're OK with the commanding officer being able to inquire,” said Andrew Arulanandam, an NRA spokesman, “but they can't confiscate.”

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who sponsored the 2011 restrictions, said he would support the new amendment “if it clears up any confusion.”

“This is a national tragedy that Congress, all branches of DOD and numerous outside organizations have been working together to solve,” the senator said in a statement.

The Senate is not expected to take up the bill until after Election Day.

Suicides in the military rose sharply from 2005 to 2009, reaching 285 active-duty service members and 24 reservists in 2009. As the services expanded suicide prevention programs, the numbers leveled off somewhat in 2010 and 2011.

But this year, the numbers are on track to beat the 2009 figures, with about 270 active-duty service members, half from the Army, having killed themselves as of last month.

According to Defense Department statistics, more than 6 of 10 military suicides are by firearms, with nearly half involving privately owned guns. In the civilian population, guns are also the most common method of suicide among young males, though at a somewhat lower rate.

Because suicide is often an impulsive act, separating high-risk people from their firearms is considered an effective first line of defense against suicide, many researchers say. Some military mental health specialists say the government should do much more than just amend the 2011 law.

Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, a psychiatrist, retired colonel and former mental health adviser to the Army surgeon general, said the Pentagon should aggressively promote gun safety as well as consider making it harder for at-risk troops to buy ammunition and weapons at on-base gun stores.

“At our base stores, they are increasingly having very lovely gun shops where they sell all different types of ammunition and weapons,” Ritchie said. “I am troubled that on the one hand we are saying we are doing all we can to decrease suicide and on the other making it so easy for service members to buy weapons.”

Many military officials say the Pentagon is not prepared to go that far. But some suicide experts see a greater willingness by senior Pentagon officials to discuss the links between firearms and suicide.

They note that several prominent retired officers, including Peter Chiarelli, a former Army vice chief of staff, have begun speaking publicly about the issue. And they note that the military has begun taking small steps to encourage gun safety, including giving away trigger locks at a recent Pentagon health fair.

“You've got to realize the cultural change when trigger locks are given out in the Pentagon,” said Bruce Shahbaz, an Army suicide prevention expert. “That's huge.”

In the Veterans Affairs Department, mental health counselors and suicide hot line agents routinely encourage suicidal veterans to store their guns or give them to relatives. But the issue is difficult, with concerns that some veterans avoid mental health care because they fear their firearms will be confiscated.

“It is sensitive,” said Jan Kemp, the department's national suicide prevention coordinator. “We don't in any way want to imply that we would want to take people's right to bear firearms away.”

Woodson, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the Pentagon's broader suicide prevention program would include measures to discourage alcohol usage by at-risk service members and remove potentially deadly prescription drugs from their homes.